Lost and Now Found

"Stop playing with the balance!" screamed our high school science teacher as her gaze pointed to our table's direction. It was science laboratory time, our group shared a table with another and in my mind she was yelling at the other group for not taking the experiment seriously. I went on with forming my 1/2 lengthwise pad of paper into half so I could get a square-shaped object. I improvised because our group wasn't able to prepare the materials to be used for the experiment. "STOP PLAYING WITH THE BALANCE!" This time you can hear her fuming with anger as she said every word. She then grabbed my pad paper, threw it across the room and I froze in shock as I didn't expect that what I did was "playing" in her eyes. I felt humiliated and I wanted to explain myself. Everybody thinks of this teacher as a terror. Back then, I was so sure that I was a "good" student. I know deep inside me that I wouldn't dare do such a thing. My previous teachers know that about me and I'm sure my classmates do too. Instead of talking back and crying out of embarrassment, I kept my thoughts to myself, "My teacher misjudged my actions, I did nothing wrong."

Four years later, our college teacher blurted out, "What's your role in the group, Abad? Nagbarog ra man ka nganha?" I teamed up with Wayne and Gerald (really smart guys) in a group reporting and they did all the explaining because it was their assigned group task. Mine was to prepare the slides and introduce the problem. As my part was cut short, what I prepared wasn't what our teacher expected, I took the role of the slides navigator. After their explanation, our teacher then said that he couldn't call my standing there a contribution to the group's work. I was so embarrassed and I just stood from where I was. I tried my best to muster the courage to keep standing just so others won't see how I was at the point of breaking down. I said to myself, "My teacher was right, I was useless. I didn't know what I was doing. My classmates are smarter than I was. But I did my part! Why didn't he see it? But my teacher is smart too. He can't be wrong. There must be something wrong with me."

My organization senior seemed to echo that thought as she exclaimed, "Hi Miss char-char!" which to me meant, "Hi Miss who-says-nice-things-that-are-not-really-true." I felt uncomfortable hearing it because it made me question my credibility. I valued honesty but  she kept on telling me that I was the opposite. My mind couldn't take the burden of resisting the ridicule, so I accepted all of the insults. I was never really strong enough to defend myself and the things that mattered to me. Only other people mattered. Whatever they say, must be true. So it is I, who should adjust.

I dealt with these matters with just that in mind - "I should adjust." I never told my teachers my side of the story and I stopped saying nice things to other people after I was given that nickname. I swayed from personality to personality. Everybody told me that I was better off doing this and that, I conformed to all of those. I tried my best to be everything to everybody. I thought that this would solve the problem but little did I know that a bigger one was just starting. I'm losing the person who always believed she had something special. She knew her worth and she thought she was awesome. She had faith in her abilities and she believed that she was capable of doing good things. She exuded that quiet air of confidence that didn't feel the need to tell others of her achievements. She was secure with who she was. Her sense of self was intact. I lost her to fear of not belonging.

It took a lot of confrontation with my demons, moments of envy and insecurity, of weakness and depression, of healing and acceptance to find that girl again. I never would've done it without the help of the people around me. Obviously, this has gotten quite long and the takeaway of all of this is - I'm not letting all of those experiences define me anymore. I'm not letting other people define who I am too. I won't be motivated by fear any longer. I fought a long battle and I believe I've found "me." And I love me. I'm made of dreams and rainbows but that doesn't mean I don't value facts. I'm nice and kind but I'm not a doormat. I'm an open-minded idealist. I'm a living contradiction and I have no problem with that. For after all, it's not your job to like me, it's mine. Honey, make it your job to like yourself too and bless the world with wonders that only you can do :).